According to reports from Iran, serious clashes between the rank and file supporters of the Ayatollah Khamenei and the supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad erupted on Saturday, with many protesters severely injured with clubs and machetes.

The origin of the dispute started when I exposed the Iranian secret documentary, The Coming is Upon Us, which depicts both Ahmadinejad and Khamenei as the mythical figures who will bring about the reappearance of Imam Mahdi, the Shiite’s 12th Imam. The movie was made in collaboration with the president’s office, specifically with the help of Rahim Mashaei, President Ahmadinejad’s top adviser and chief of staff. As soon as there was wide coverage of this news in the Western media, the senior clerics in Qom, the country’s seat of Shiite scholarship, harshly complained claiming that now the enemy (the West) is using this video to weaken the Islamic Republic of Iran by showing the inside intimacies of their sacred beliefs to the world. They also complained that Mashaei is trying to empower Ahmadinejad beyond the supreme leader and diminish the role of the clerics.

The rifts became more intense after the dismissal of Minister of Intelligence Heidar Moslehi by Ahmadinejad and the ensuing restatement of the minister by the supreme leader. Ahmadinejad wants control of the Intelligence Ministry and so do the opposing factions close to Khamenei. In the following days, many hardline clerics announced that not obeying the supreme leader would not be tolerated, adding that obeying him is mandated by Allah.

Over the course of last week, the hardliners, thirsty for power and with the backing of Khamenei, arrested 25 people loyal to Ahmadinejad and Mashaei and have blocked several websites allied with them. Among those arrested is the cleric Abbas Amirifar, the prayer leader of the presidential palace. He has been charged in connection with the production of the movie.

In response, the Ahmadinejad supporters, which include many in the Revolutionary Guards and Basij, warned the hardliners (supporters of Khamenei) that there will be blood and that neither Ahmadinejad nor Mashaei will allow this attack without responding.

Most significant is that no one from the inside has ever challenged Khamenei to this extent, so his prestige is diminished. One thing is for sure though: regardless of what happens now, the blow to the Iranian leadership will be permanent. If the Islamic Republic of Iran lost its legitimacy over the fraudulent elections of 2009, it has now lost the legitimacy of the power of its supreme leader!

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons. He is the author of A Time to Betray, a book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, published by Threshold Editions, Simon & Schuster, April 2010.

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the author of the award winning book, A Time to Betray. He serves on the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and the advisory board of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI).

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1.
koblog

…apparently, the argument is over which well the Mahdi will appear from, and who owns merchandising licensing rights.

Ahmadinejad couldn’t have faked the election results without Khamenei’s approval.

You shouldn’t help someone steal power because someday he might try to steal your power.

There is a classic lesson that people fail to learn over and over throughout history and throughout the world. You can’t use unethical means to achieve a “good” end. Those people who are capable at wielding unethical means will use them for their own ends not for “good”. People who would support revolutionaries and radicals of all types should pay attention to this. The vast majority of revolutionary and radical leaders are simply out to amass as much power for themselves as they can. Their followers are simply dupes who will learn too late that their cause is folly.

I agree that we Americans should enthusiasticly stand aside and hold the coats and cloth caps of these Iranian rioters in of all their exqusitely defined barbarities, and indeed let them kill each other; but I disagree with the sweeping statement that the Obamaites here in America will slit the throats of those who disagree with them…..our liberal media over here have assumed that rhetorical role, albeit not so dramatically or graphicly, of belittling and and sneering down from aloft at their foes.

But, if you listen to Liberals carefully, you’ll hear some of them sneezing at their own internal allergies.

This power struggle started when you exposed the documentary? Are they worried about revealing their beliefs to the west or to their own people? Maybe they know the Iranian public will actively resist being sacrificed by the clerics. I am glad you have the documentary on your web site. Hopefully it is being watched by many in Iran.

They seem so primitive as to be nearly insane. It is amazing that people can think and act like this in the 21st Century. This is the kind of thing that went on 6000 years ago. If Iran had not been given computers, TV, satellites, modern medicine, electricity, etc. from the Western world, I wonder if there would be any noticeable differences there between today and 4000 BC?

This rift is deeply Persian. Iran suffers from a split personality. The Persian nationality predates Islam by at least 1,000 years. Islam was forced upon Zoroastrian Persia….many Iranians have not forgotten. Persian shi’ism is deeply mystical and so different from Sunni Islam such that many Sunni theological thinkers do not recognize it as Islamic. I have no idea and dog in this fight…I do hope they bloody each other and bring Iran out of the lunatic asylum of the past 31 years.

I lived in Iran before and after the Islamic Revolution. Persian civilization will hopefully survive this. Knowing Iranians as I do I think that will happen.

You mean legitimacy of Khamenei?
But he is neither an imam nor a prophet. The leadership of jurists is a new thing, an invention of Khomeini. Rahbar Khamenei can be put from power by other ayatollahs.
So this legitimacy is neither inherited from ages past nor can not be lost.
Islam is NOT Christianity.
Rahbar is NOT a pope.

It appears that Sauron’s invasion of Middle-Earth has been put on indefinite hold do to massive infighting among his various orc hordes. We will have more information for you and a panel discussion tonight at 11pm!

#7 Gene:”…Iranians
who want freedom from their thuggish leaders”. Revolutionary “liberation” of oppressed is the base leftist slogan. The History tells that revolutions do not solve any problems and the people on both sides of the barricades do not differs strongly.Nevertheless the distruction power of the state is decreasing.

Wrong words in the title. It should read “Rift in Ayatollahs’ Leadership …”. Stop associating Iranians with the Ayatollahs. They have no respect for Iran or Iranians, and these “Reza” articles are getting a bit out of line.

I think it’s best to call it: “the occupying regime in Iran”. The ayatollahs and Islam both are occupying forces in Iran and there is no doubt about that.
As Khomeini back in 1979 when he took power by the help of the triangle of “Carter-Britain-Soviets” he swore: Islam’s take over of Iran is the first base for its expansion and Islam will take a solid root and spread like firestorm to the rest of the world!!!
Wow Isn’t that what we are seeing? Except that Islam did not take root in Iran because it will never be able to dominate the minds of its secular nation. But however it is spreading to the rest of the world because of the stupidity of the world’s dumb PC mentality so far.

Remedy for freedom and peace: disable Islamists, leftists, Britain’s government’s policies, China, Russia, and EU’s enormous financial trades with the barbarians, while at the same time expose and put on trial their lobbyists in the West.